Wish I Was the Moon
Title: Wish I Was the Moon
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Characters: Dean, Castiel
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Angst, language, blasphemy if you choose to see it that way.
Spoilers: All of season 4, major spoilers for Lucifer Rising. Be warned. (I started writing this before any S5 spoilers were released, so it is all speculation.)
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. *sigh* Title taken from a song of the same name by Neko Case.
Word Count: 4,295
Summary: Written for Paxlux, who (a very long time ago) asked me to write a Dean Castiel--the pairing, I know, was purely for my benefit--using the prompt "zephyr." It took me nearly four months, several re-writes, two complete scrappings, and lots of editing, but I finally have something to give you. ♥
A/N: As Paxy is my usual beta and this was for her, this was betad by the amazing fullonswayzeed. She did a FANTASTIC job, and I could not be more grateful for her input. Thank you so much, sweetheart! Your editing helped me tremendously.
A/N I: One last one, I promise; the only reason I was able to finish this piece is because of the song "I Wish I Was The Moon" by Neko Case. Thus, the title of this story.
Dean once read somewhere that one should only being doing two things in one’s bed: sleeping and having sex.
Lately, he is doing neither.
It is an unfortunate truth to say the least. But, what with Lucifer walking the Earth and Hell rising faster than a teenage boy at his first nudie bar, Dean has little time for trolling bars for easy women and absolutely no way to quiet his mind enough for sleep.
Of course, the incessant wind pounding against the windows and whistling through the crack beneath the motel room door doesn’t help. He and Sammy have been camped out in the same paisley-drenched room for two days, and not once has the noise stopped.
Sam thinks it’s a sign: an omen of things to come. Dean thinks Mother Nature is a fucking bitch.
Whatever the cause, the effect is the same. Dean had made an effort to sleep; he’d lie down on the lumpy mattress and close his eyes, not thinking about how utterly, painfully, hopelessly alone he and Sammy continue to be, but would still find himself unable to sleep. He’d shift and roll around, pulling the sheet tightly around himself then kicking it off again, fluff the pillow only to flatten it out once more.
He’d given up near dawn.
At first he’d gotten up and attempted to search the papers in neighboring states for anything that might be of interest to him, but the words all bled together, forming a massive blotch of ink which didn’t seem to form words at all. He couldn’t turn on the television without waking Sammy (and the kid needs his rest,) so he’d thrown on his coat, grabbed his keys and left.
Now he sits on the hood of the Impala, feeling the remaining warmth draining from her engine beneath him. The early morning chill is settling over him, heavy and stinging, as he watches the clouds gather over a field whose tall blades of grass roll like ocean waves.
Fucking wind.
It’s only gotten more insistent since he left the motel, and now it bites his face and hands as it thrashes about, casting leaves and bits of forgotten trash into a frenzy, carrying them along the empty street behind him.
The sky, however, is distracting him from his discomfort. The clouds hang thick and heavy, painted in odd shades of gray, giving little hint that the sun is just rising behind them.
Anywhere else, to any other observer, it would be a depressing and dismal scene indeed.
Dean doesn’t mind though. Not much.
It may be cold, and it may kind of suck, but it’s nothing compared to the shit he’s been dealing with lately. At least here, for a while, he can just sit and drink and pretend not to worry about angels or demons or anything else. The insistent, ever-loudening screams of Heaven and Hell are drowned out by the howling wind.
It’s too cold and too early for beer, but he’s too tired to care. If Hell is really coming, there’s no way he’s facing it sober. Not after everything he’s already been through, everything he’s seen.
Not after everything he’s lost.
Drinking deeply from his bottle, Dean shifts where he sits. His throat tightens and he wonders…
It’s been two weeks now.
Two weeks and he hasn’t heard a goddamned thing from Castiel.
Not that he’s surprised. That harp-playing bastard is nothing if not an incredible pain in the ass. More than once he’s disappeared right when Dean really could’ve used his help the most, and Dean couldn’t count on one hand all the times he’s wanted to bitch slap the angel back to Eden over his apparent hard-on for being as cryptic as possible when he does deign to attempt being helpful.
Still, two weeks is a long time-especially considering the circumstances.
Sliding off the hood, Dean sets his beer down in the dirt and digs his hands into his pockets, starting to walk toward the edge of the field.
A crumbling wooden gate borders the pasture, and he stops as he reaches it. For a moment he considers jumping it and continuing on into the overgrown shrubbery, but thinks better of it. The grass is so thick and tall that it could house any number of hidden dangers, and he’s no use to anyone injured.
Why he cares, though, he isn’t sure.
The angels say he’s supposed to stop Lucifer, but as far as Dean can tell, the angels are full of it. They’re too busy patting themselves on the back to really see what they’ve unleashed in allowing Lucifer to rise. He, however, can feel it inching closer and closer with every breath he takes. It’s a lump in his throat, a knot in his stomach; he can feel it in every bone, in every cell, but he can’t see it.
He can’t. He can only see what they-Heaven, Hell, whoever-want him to see. Of course, the only being who could’ve helped him around that, the only being who cared to, is (rather conveniently, Dean notes) currently God-knows-where, doing God-knows-what. And, whatever it is that he’s doing, it certainly isn’t helping Dean any.
Dean knows that, were he here, Castiel would probably disapprove of the early-morning drinking. Then, no doubt, he would question what Dean was doing wandering around this early anyway. He’d ramble on about not running away from problems or some shit like that. Then he’d leave, assured of his own righteousness.
Dean heads back toward the road.
When he reaches his car again, he leans against the passenger door, hanging his head between his extended arms and sighing. He presses his eyes shut as the icy breeze kicks dust up from the road and, for a second, his head spins a little.
It feels like falling, like he’s stepped over the edge of a cliff and now he’s plummeting downwards, headed for a bloody meeting with the ground with nothing to stop him.
“Fuck,” he murmurs, feeling his eyes tear up from the cold or from the dust, maybe from both. “Come on.”
The vertigo continues for what feels like hours-though, it’s probably just seconds-but it passes. He opens his eyes and nearly loses his balance again jumping backward. Away from the angel now watching him with hollow blue eyes, one arm resting on the trunk of the car.
“Hello, Dean,” he whispers, his words nearly lost to the zephyr. His shoulders are hunched and he looks unbelievably small in his coat (more so than usual, Dean thinks.) He looks as though he can barely stand, like it’s taking all his effort to do so; like the wind could pick him up and carry him away at any moment.
Several moments pass between them, thick with silence as Dean attempts to overcome his jarring surprise at the angel’s presence. He tries once to talk, but finds that his throat has closed up and his brain has completely disconnected itself from his mouth.
He just can’t seem to think of any words which quite capture his relief. Nor, he knows, would he speak them even if he did.
Castiel allows him the time he needs to try and untangle his thoughts, watching as Dean chokes on his own tongue.
Dean has never felt as ridiculous as he does now.
Turning from Castiel, Dean shakes his head and reaches down for the beer bottle he had left on the road, downing the remaining liquid in one go.
“You son of a bitch,” he hisses, turning back to glance at the angel. In response, Castiel only moves his gaze to the ground, lips pursed. He says nothing, which comes as no surprise to Dean.
Moving swiftly to stand close to Castiel, Dean hunches slightly so they are face to face.
He can feel a combination of indignant rage (fueled by thoughts like “you were too fucking late, Lucifer’s here and it’s all your fault you useless, sorry excuse for an angel” and “where the fuck have you been while Sammy and I have been getting our asses kicked by every fucking evil bastard under the goddamned sun, asshole?”) and sickening worry (“I’m sorry. What did they do to you?”), but he pushes the latter aside, fighting the nauseating twist of his stomach.
Right now he needs the anger: anger keeps him alive. Concern never lead to anything good.
“Don’t you look away from me. Two weeks, Cas. It’s been two fucking weeks!”
“I know. I‘m-”
“Yeah, don’t finish that thought. I swear to God, if I hear ‘I’m sorry’ from you one more time,” Dean steps back, throwing his hands in the air, the bottle slipping from his grip and clattering to the ground, “it really starts to lose its meaning after a while, you know?”
Once again, Castiel says nothing. He avoids Dean’s gaze like it’s some kind of awful sin, but he says nothing. Instead, he watches the bottle as it rolls down a small incline, coming to rest in a patch of dried-out grass.
“Really? Nothing to say to that?” Dean snaps, scoffing and rolling his eyes. “Typical.”
“I came as soon as I was able. I know what you and Sam have been through, and I truly am-”
Closing the space between them in one motion, Dean pushes Castiel roughly against the Impala, grabbing the edges of his coat and glaring at him, speaking through gritted teeth.
“I. Said. Don’t. I mean it.”
Castiel looks surprised at Dean’s action, his eyes as wide as Dean has ever seen them, and then, for a moment, he looks incredibly pissed off. Dean swallows hard, waiting for the unholy smiting he is surely about to receive, but it doesn’t come.
Still he doesn’t let go of the coat.
“What would you have me say?” His eyes are narrowed now and his brows are knitted tightly together; Dean can see a threat there, a warning that Dean should remember who it is that he is messing with.
Crushing the tan fabric in his hands, Dean notices that it’s already become damp with sweat from his palms.
“How about you start by telling me where you’ve been?”
Castiel pulls away, brushing Dean’s hands from his coat as he does. Stepping away from the car, away from Dean, he faces the field and watches it, his hands clasped lightly behind his back. The wind catches his hair, snapping it this way and that, leaving him looking even more disheveled and pathetic than before.
“You and your brother should leave this town soon,” he says finally, his voice low and rough and detached as ever, “it isn’t safe anymore.”
“Yeah, well, you find somewhere that is and I’m there. And don’t change the subject.”
Turning his face to look at Dean, Castiel frowns.
“I was away, Dean. The rest is none of your concern.”
“Like Hell it isn’t!” Angry, Dean moves to Castiel’s side, hands moving wildly in emphasis. “The last time those bastards got their hands on you…”
He pauses mid-sentence, the words caught on the tip of his tongue: They took you away. They fucked you up and sent you back. They changed you.
Turning from Castiel, he closes his eyes and walks a few steps away, trying to clear his head. He knows what he wants to say, but he also knows he can’t.
He knows better.
After a pause, he continues, softer now.
“Look, I need to know, man. Just give me something.”
Dean tells himself that he is not, in fact, begging. He just doesn’t do that. He doesn’t.
Castiel’s gaze falls once more to the ground at Dean’s feet before he turns to watch the sky again.
At first, Dean is sure Castiel is trying to brush off his request, but when the angel makes a noise which sounds suspiciously like a sigh, Dean waits.
“The archangel was furious with me.”
Scoffing, Dean shoves his hands into his jacket pocket and walks the few steps back to Castiel’s side.
“Well, don’t I feel enlightened?”
“It told me that I had shamed not only myself, but all of Heaven, by disobeying. Then it reminded me that I was lucky not to Fall.”
Oh.
Dean feels his stomach drop as a number of horrific scenarios play out in his mind’s eye at Cas’ words. He remembers the last time Castiel was punished, he remembers the change that had occurred in the angel because of it.
He remembers watching him walk away.
Something that changes someone that much that quickly… he can imagine.
He’s been there. He knows how it works.
“What?” he half-laughs, hoping his act is convincing, “Like ‘don’t do it again’ and that’s it? That took two weeks? You angels really need to learn some time-management skills.”
“No, not exactly.”
If Dean’s stomach could fall any further, it would be somewhere around his feet now.
He knows what Castiel is trying to tell him without really telling him, he knows what the angel is trying to protect him from.
The question is there between them, practically lit up in neon: what did they do to you?
Every cell in Dean’s body is screaming at him to just ask already. He needs Castiel to tell him. But the way Castiel is looking at him, Dean gets it. He’s seen that look in the mirror a few times. It’s the same way he looks whenever Sam asks about Hell, the look Sam gets when Dean asks about his time spent with Ruby.
The wounds Cas has now are too fresh for prodding, so Dean backs off.
Against his very nature, he backs off.
“Fine. Vague is good too,” Dean holds his hands up, signaling his surrender. There is no sarcasm in his tone, for once, and he flashes Castiel a bright smile.
The angel looks wary, no doubt thrown by Dean’s sudden agreeability, and Dean feels mistrustful eyes boring into his back as he reaches into the back seat of the car, extracting two glass bottles full of warming beer. He holds one up to Castiel, a truce offering of sorts, but Castiel just looks more confused. He shakes his head once and Dean shrugs, replacing one bottle and opening the other, drinking deeply.
“Well, okay. But don’t claim I never offered.”
Resting his arms on the trunk, Dean reclines a little, drinking and watching the field once more. He feels Castiel’s eyes on him for a few more seconds before the angel moves to stand beside him, his hands holding the edge of the trunk as he leans against it.
Silence settles over them, but it’s not uncomfortable. In fact, Dean feels more relaxed than he has in ages. Certainly more relaxed than he’s felt since Lucifer was released (not that that says much).
It almost feels normal-as normal as hanging around drinking with an angel can feel.
“Crazy weather, huh? It’s been a real bitch since we got here.”
“It’s been that way everywhere, Dean, and it will continue to be.”
Dean takes a swig from his bottle, then turns to look at Castiel.
“Whaddya mean?”
Castiel looks back at him now. When their eyes meet, Dean wishes he hadn’t asked.
“That’s them. It’s Heaven and Hell, and they’re becoming anxious. They are, in a sense, preparing the troops… Now they’re just waiting for the signal.”
“What signal?”
Castiel looks at the ground between them fleetingly. Dean wonders if maybe he’s spent too much time with this angel, spent too much time analyzing his facial expressions and the meanings imparted by his silence. This silence, this expression, neither is foreign to Dean anymore. He knows what they mean.
He knows what Castiel is thinking before he says it.
“What you do next-how you choose to handle this-will determine their next steps.”
“Great,” Dean groans, turning around to lean his torso over the back of the car and lowering his head as exhaustion suddenly begins to weigh over him, heavier than ever. “No pressure there.”
He feels a warm hand on his shoulder and looks up to find Castiel, a sympathetic half-smile on his face.
It helps, but it is hardly enough to quell the clenching of Dean’s lungs.
“Is it too much to hope you know what it is I’m supposed to do? I’m guessing bolting in the night is out of the question…”
Laughing softly, appreciatively, Castiel mimics Dean’s position on the car. He’s standing close enough that their arms are touching.
Dean does his best not to notice.
“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you. I wish I did.”
“Yeah, well… thanks anyway,” Dean chugs from his bottle once more, but it’s lost all its flavor. It has started to warm from the heat of his hands, and he isn’t even sure it’s fulfilling its sole purpose of making him drunk enough to forget just how royally fucked he is.
Next time, he decides, he’s springing for the good stuff.
“So what about you?” he turns to Castiel who looks down at his vessel’s hands, “what happens to you if I choose wrong?”
Castiel folds his hands, squinting against the cold wind.
“They’ve already let me go; they have more important things to deal with than me.”
“You sure about that?”
“No,” Castiel pauses, frowning slightly, only for a moment, before looking back at Dean and raising a brow, “but when are we ever sure of anything?”
Dean feels his insides warm, and his head feels like it’s been pumped full of air. He is almost completely certain that it has nothing to do with the beer.
“I guess you’re right.”
It isn’t exactly enough, assuming that Castiel might be okay in the end. And it is, after all, probably more than partially Dean’s fault that the angel is now in trouble with the higher-ups: Dean had asked him, begged him, for help, and, he’d come through.
Of course, it had meant sacrifice on Castiel’s part; sacrifice that Dean couldn’t fathom in his wildest dreams. Dean knows this.
They’d both been asked to risk everything. Dean had done so for Sammy. Castiel had done so for-
“Hey, Cas?”
“Hmm?”
Dean fiddles with the almost-empty bottle in his hands. He swears it feels heavier now than it did only moments before, and his palms are slippery with his anxious perspiration.
He was never good at the whole gratitude thing.
“Thanks… for what you did. I mean-I wasn’t exactly-Thanks.”
Castiel looks at him sideways and nods, brow raised once more. His eyes search Dean’s, and Dean feels so exposed and bared for Castiel to see that he looks away.
He immediately hates himself for it.
“How is Sam dealing with everything?” Castiel asks, and Dean exhales in relief.
Normally, Dean is one of the blessed few who can happily carry on a conversation whether or not anyone else actually takes part. Lately, however, he has found that the right words don’t seem to come as quickly as they used to. If Castiel hadn’t said anything, they would’ve been in for a good five minutes of awkward silence.
“Ah, you know Sammy: as long as he’s got a library and that stupid computer, he’s fine. My brother the geek.”
“Good. I was concerned that the demon blood may have been too much for him to handle. He has been through much, and the addiction is a powerful one... That he hasn’t succumbed to it again is admirable.”
For a moment, Dean just stares; mouth hanging open like a catfish.
The shock is fairly overwhelming, after all: he is sure he’s never heard anything even remotely resembling sympathy for Sam leave Castiel’s mouth, and he was sure he never would. Sam and Castiel had been on opposite sides from the start. A rock and a hard place, with Dean stuck somewhere between.
But, he’d said it. Even as robotic as it sounded, that Castiel would think to say it at all is more than appreciated.
A weight he hadn’t been aware he’d been carrying lifts from Dean’s shoulders and he smiles.
“Yeah, it’s been hard for him, for both of us. But we get by.”
The wind whips between them, angry and cold, and Castiel backs away from the car.
“I should be going. There are things I must attend to.”
Dean has a split second to make his decision, and he does.
He doesn’t even bother pretending to let Cas walk away; he decides they’re both already living on borrowed time anyway. Better to make the best of it while they can.
He reaches out for Castiel’s hand and uses it to pull the angel’s body to his. Then Dean presses his lips to Castiel’s so hard he worries for an instant that he might be hurting him. He feels Castiel’s hands grip his arms, tightly at first but after a moment, they relax a bit.
Running his hands up Castiel’s arms, he lets them rest on his neck, fingers brushing his throat.
Time stops around them, allowing them their moment. The angry howling of the wind is gone, replaced with the pulsating beat in Dean’s ears; his blood rushing through his system at a million miles a minute. The cold is chased away by the warmth from Castiel’s body, from the way his hands are holding Dean’s arms, so firm and reassuring.
Everything fades away, just for a moment, leaving only Dean and his angel.
And, he realizes incredulously, he’s happy. Somewhere Lucifer is walking around wearing some schmuck’s skin, somewhere a horde of Heaven’s angels are plotting the fall of Man; somewhere the End is just waiting for that last piece of the hideous puzzle called the Apocalypse to fall into place, bringing it all to a stop.
But not here.
Here there’s just Castiel’s hands, and his lips, and the way his hot breath is kissing Dean’s cheek, leaving it moist and warm to the touch.
“Goddamn,” Dean whispers into Castiel’s hair, content to just hold him like this a little longer, “goddamn.”
The abandoned beer bottle tumbles from the hood of the car where Dean had left it, crashing to the ground. It rolls away, cracked but not shattered.
*
Castiel sighs.
He knows he has to leave shortly, though it may be the last thing he wants to do. Things are different now, and he knows it.
He’d disobeyed. He’d disobeyed, and one of Heaven’s greatest weapons had descended upon him, beautiful and terrible, tearing him from Jimmy’s body in a burst of pure light.
The archangel had broken him completely, nearly to a point from which he could not return.
For two weeks, Castiel had been re-indoctrinated, his grace scrubbed and cleansed until it was raw, whittled down to its original, perfect purity.
It was excruciating.
This is becoming a habit with you, the archangel had once mused, and Castiel had imagined it was smiling. Of course it wasn’t; angels didn’t smile. That was the point.
Eventually, once the archangel decided Castiel was pure enough, it had agreed to allow his release. There had been only one condition: that he go immediately to Dean and insist that the hunter choose to side with the angels who had fooled him, had fooled his brother, into bringing about the Apocalypse. Castiel was, of course, the only angel Dean might listen to.
That had been on day three. Castiel, understanding what that would mean for Dean, refused.
The archangel continued with the cleansing.
The same offer was made and refused on day five.
And again on day nine.
And then on day twelve.
On day fourteen, Castiel agreed. He swore to the archangel that Dean would receive the message, that he would make the right choice.
Pleased with the answer, the archangel had allowed Castiel to leave.
Castiel had come to his decision on day thirteen, and was angry with himself for taking so long to do so. It seemed an obvious one.
He would agree, would tell the archangel what it wanted to hear, then he would go to Dean. He would make the hunter aware of the significance of his decision. Then he would step back and let Dean choose for himself what to do next.
The point, the only thing that matters, is making Dean see that he is important; that he is not alone. Had Castiel disappeared, refused for eternity to give in to Heaven’s demands, Dean would only have known he had been abandoned, yet again, by someone whom he trusted.
The angels will eventually realize what Castiel has done, of course, and he will be forced to live like a fugitive: constantly moving, not looking back; always waiting for the moment when his brothers will catch up with him.
Castiel is okay with that: he accepts his fate.
Dean is worth that.
Turning his face from Dean’s, Castiel speaks.
“I must go now.”
He feels Dean’s lips on his neck, in awe of the way his borrowed skin reacts to it. He’s never felt so vividly, it is as though every nerve ending is working at its maximum setting. He feels every slight touch of Dean’s fingers against his own, every fluttering eyelash as it brushes his face.
“Fine. But you better come back this time, got it?” Dean pulls back, narrowed green eyes finding Castiel’s, “If you get yourself killed, I will hunt your pathetic ass into the depths of Hell, I swear to God.”
Castiel nods and, as he leaves, planting a kiss on Dean’s forehead, he wonders if it’s true.
*
That night, Dean sleeps soundly. The wind keeps up, but he no longer hears it.
He falls asleep waiting for the sound of rushing wings.
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Characters: Dean, Castiel
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Angst, language, blasphemy if you choose to see it that way.
Spoilers: All of season 4, major spoilers for Lucifer Rising. Be warned. (I started writing this before any S5 spoilers were released, so it is all speculation.)
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. *sigh* Title taken from a song of the same name by Neko Case.
Word Count: 4,295
Summary: Written for Paxlux, who (a very long time ago) asked me to write a Dean Castiel--the pairing, I know, was purely for my benefit--using the prompt "zephyr." It took me nearly four months, several re-writes, two complete scrappings, and lots of editing, but I finally have something to give you. ♥
A/N: As Paxy is my usual beta and this was for her, this was betad by the amazing fullonswayzeed. She did a FANTASTIC job, and I could not be more grateful for her input. Thank you so much, sweetheart! Your editing helped me tremendously.
A/N I: One last one, I promise; the only reason I was able to finish this piece is because of the song "I Wish I Was The Moon" by Neko Case. Thus, the title of this story.
Dean once read somewhere that one should only being doing two things in one’s bed: sleeping and having sex.
Lately, he is doing neither.
It is an unfortunate truth to say the least. But, what with Lucifer walking the Earth and Hell rising faster than a teenage boy at his first nudie bar, Dean has little time for trolling bars for easy women and absolutely no way to quiet his mind enough for sleep.
Of course, the incessant wind pounding against the windows and whistling through the crack beneath the motel room door doesn’t help. He and Sammy have been camped out in the same paisley-drenched room for two days, and not once has the noise stopped.
Sam thinks it’s a sign: an omen of things to come. Dean thinks Mother Nature is a fucking bitch.
Whatever the cause, the effect is the same. Dean had made an effort to sleep; he’d lie down on the lumpy mattress and close his eyes, not thinking about how utterly, painfully, hopelessly alone he and Sammy continue to be, but would still find himself unable to sleep. He’d shift and roll around, pulling the sheet tightly around himself then kicking it off again, fluff the pillow only to flatten it out once more.
He’d given up near dawn.
At first he’d gotten up and attempted to search the papers in neighboring states for anything that might be of interest to him, but the words all bled together, forming a massive blotch of ink which didn’t seem to form words at all. He couldn’t turn on the television without waking Sammy (and the kid needs his rest,) so he’d thrown on his coat, grabbed his keys and left.
Now he sits on the hood of the Impala, feeling the remaining warmth draining from her engine beneath him. The early morning chill is settling over him, heavy and stinging, as he watches the clouds gather over a field whose tall blades of grass roll like ocean waves.
Fucking wind.
It’s only gotten more insistent since he left the motel, and now it bites his face and hands as it thrashes about, casting leaves and bits of forgotten trash into a frenzy, carrying them along the empty street behind him.
The sky, however, is distracting him from his discomfort. The clouds hang thick and heavy, painted in odd shades of gray, giving little hint that the sun is just rising behind them.
Anywhere else, to any other observer, it would be a depressing and dismal scene indeed.
Dean doesn’t mind though. Not much.
It may be cold, and it may kind of suck, but it’s nothing compared to the shit he’s been dealing with lately. At least here, for a while, he can just sit and drink and pretend not to worry about angels or demons or anything else. The insistent, ever-loudening screams of Heaven and Hell are drowned out by the howling wind.
It’s too cold and too early for beer, but he’s too tired to care. If Hell is really coming, there’s no way he’s facing it sober. Not after everything he’s already been through, everything he’s seen.
Not after everything he’s lost.
Drinking deeply from his bottle, Dean shifts where he sits. His throat tightens and he wonders…
It’s been two weeks now.
Two weeks and he hasn’t heard a goddamned thing from Castiel.
Not that he’s surprised. That harp-playing bastard is nothing if not an incredible pain in the ass. More than once he’s disappeared right when Dean really could’ve used his help the most, and Dean couldn’t count on one hand all the times he’s wanted to bitch slap the angel back to Eden over his apparent hard-on for being as cryptic as possible when he does deign to attempt being helpful.
Still, two weeks is a long time-especially considering the circumstances.
Sliding off the hood, Dean sets his beer down in the dirt and digs his hands into his pockets, starting to walk toward the edge of the field.
A crumbling wooden gate borders the pasture, and he stops as he reaches it. For a moment he considers jumping it and continuing on into the overgrown shrubbery, but thinks better of it. The grass is so thick and tall that it could house any number of hidden dangers, and he’s no use to anyone injured.
Why he cares, though, he isn’t sure.
The angels say he’s supposed to stop Lucifer, but as far as Dean can tell, the angels are full of it. They’re too busy patting themselves on the back to really see what they’ve unleashed in allowing Lucifer to rise. He, however, can feel it inching closer and closer with every breath he takes. It’s a lump in his throat, a knot in his stomach; he can feel it in every bone, in every cell, but he can’t see it.
He can’t. He can only see what they-Heaven, Hell, whoever-want him to see. Of course, the only being who could’ve helped him around that, the only being who cared to, is (rather conveniently, Dean notes) currently God-knows-where, doing God-knows-what. And, whatever it is that he’s doing, it certainly isn’t helping Dean any.
Dean knows that, were he here, Castiel would probably disapprove of the early-morning drinking. Then, no doubt, he would question what Dean was doing wandering around this early anyway. He’d ramble on about not running away from problems or some shit like that. Then he’d leave, assured of his own righteousness.
Dean heads back toward the road.
When he reaches his car again, he leans against the passenger door, hanging his head between his extended arms and sighing. He presses his eyes shut as the icy breeze kicks dust up from the road and, for a second, his head spins a little.
It feels like falling, like he’s stepped over the edge of a cliff and now he’s plummeting downwards, headed for a bloody meeting with the ground with nothing to stop him.
“Fuck,” he murmurs, feeling his eyes tear up from the cold or from the dust, maybe from both. “Come on.”
The vertigo continues for what feels like hours-though, it’s probably just seconds-but it passes. He opens his eyes and nearly loses his balance again jumping backward. Away from the angel now watching him with hollow blue eyes, one arm resting on the trunk of the car.
“Hello, Dean,” he whispers, his words nearly lost to the zephyr. His shoulders are hunched and he looks unbelievably small in his coat (more so than usual, Dean thinks.) He looks as though he can barely stand, like it’s taking all his effort to do so; like the wind could pick him up and carry him away at any moment.
Several moments pass between them, thick with silence as Dean attempts to overcome his jarring surprise at the angel’s presence. He tries once to talk, but finds that his throat has closed up and his brain has completely disconnected itself from his mouth.
He just can’t seem to think of any words which quite capture his relief. Nor, he knows, would he speak them even if he did.
Castiel allows him the time he needs to try and untangle his thoughts, watching as Dean chokes on his own tongue.
Dean has never felt as ridiculous as he does now.
Turning from Castiel, Dean shakes his head and reaches down for the beer bottle he had left on the road, downing the remaining liquid in one go.
“You son of a bitch,” he hisses, turning back to glance at the angel. In response, Castiel only moves his gaze to the ground, lips pursed. He says nothing, which comes as no surprise to Dean.
Moving swiftly to stand close to Castiel, Dean hunches slightly so they are face to face.
He can feel a combination of indignant rage (fueled by thoughts like “you were too fucking late, Lucifer’s here and it’s all your fault you useless, sorry excuse for an angel” and “where the fuck have you been while Sammy and I have been getting our asses kicked by every fucking evil bastard under the goddamned sun, asshole?”) and sickening worry (“I’m sorry. What did they do to you?”), but he pushes the latter aside, fighting the nauseating twist of his stomach.
Right now he needs the anger: anger keeps him alive. Concern never lead to anything good.
“Don’t you look away from me. Two weeks, Cas. It’s been two fucking weeks!”
“I know. I‘m-”
“Yeah, don’t finish that thought. I swear to God, if I hear ‘I’m sorry’ from you one more time,” Dean steps back, throwing his hands in the air, the bottle slipping from his grip and clattering to the ground, “it really starts to lose its meaning after a while, you know?”
Once again, Castiel says nothing. He avoids Dean’s gaze like it’s some kind of awful sin, but he says nothing. Instead, he watches the bottle as it rolls down a small incline, coming to rest in a patch of dried-out grass.
“Really? Nothing to say to that?” Dean snaps, scoffing and rolling his eyes. “Typical.”
“I came as soon as I was able. I know what you and Sam have been through, and I truly am-”
Closing the space between them in one motion, Dean pushes Castiel roughly against the Impala, grabbing the edges of his coat and glaring at him, speaking through gritted teeth.
“I. Said. Don’t. I mean it.”
Castiel looks surprised at Dean’s action, his eyes as wide as Dean has ever seen them, and then, for a moment, he looks incredibly pissed off. Dean swallows hard, waiting for the unholy smiting he is surely about to receive, but it doesn’t come.
Still he doesn’t let go of the coat.
“What would you have me say?” His eyes are narrowed now and his brows are knitted tightly together; Dean can see a threat there, a warning that Dean should remember who it is that he is messing with.
Crushing the tan fabric in his hands, Dean notices that it’s already become damp with sweat from his palms.
“How about you start by telling me where you’ve been?”
Castiel pulls away, brushing Dean’s hands from his coat as he does. Stepping away from the car, away from Dean, he faces the field and watches it, his hands clasped lightly behind his back. The wind catches his hair, snapping it this way and that, leaving him looking even more disheveled and pathetic than before.
“You and your brother should leave this town soon,” he says finally, his voice low and rough and detached as ever, “it isn’t safe anymore.”
“Yeah, well, you find somewhere that is and I’m there. And don’t change the subject.”
Turning his face to look at Dean, Castiel frowns.
“I was away, Dean. The rest is none of your concern.”
“Like Hell it isn’t!” Angry, Dean moves to Castiel’s side, hands moving wildly in emphasis. “The last time those bastards got their hands on you…”
He pauses mid-sentence, the words caught on the tip of his tongue: They took you away. They fucked you up and sent you back. They changed you.
Turning from Castiel, he closes his eyes and walks a few steps away, trying to clear his head. He knows what he wants to say, but he also knows he can’t.
He knows better.
After a pause, he continues, softer now.
“Look, I need to know, man. Just give me something.”
Dean tells himself that he is not, in fact, begging. He just doesn’t do that. He doesn’t.
Castiel’s gaze falls once more to the ground at Dean’s feet before he turns to watch the sky again.
At first, Dean is sure Castiel is trying to brush off his request, but when the angel makes a noise which sounds suspiciously like a sigh, Dean waits.
“The archangel was furious with me.”
Scoffing, Dean shoves his hands into his jacket pocket and walks the few steps back to Castiel’s side.
“Well, don’t I feel enlightened?”
“It told me that I had shamed not only myself, but all of Heaven, by disobeying. Then it reminded me that I was lucky not to Fall.”
Oh.
Dean feels his stomach drop as a number of horrific scenarios play out in his mind’s eye at Cas’ words. He remembers the last time Castiel was punished, he remembers the change that had occurred in the angel because of it.
He remembers watching him walk away.
Something that changes someone that much that quickly… he can imagine.
He’s been there. He knows how it works.
“What?” he half-laughs, hoping his act is convincing, “Like ‘don’t do it again’ and that’s it? That took two weeks? You angels really need to learn some time-management skills.”
“No, not exactly.”
If Dean’s stomach could fall any further, it would be somewhere around his feet now.
He knows what Castiel is trying to tell him without really telling him, he knows what the angel is trying to protect him from.
The question is there between them, practically lit up in neon: what did they do to you?
Every cell in Dean’s body is screaming at him to just ask already. He needs Castiel to tell him. But the way Castiel is looking at him, Dean gets it. He’s seen that look in the mirror a few times. It’s the same way he looks whenever Sam asks about Hell, the look Sam gets when Dean asks about his time spent with Ruby.
The wounds Cas has now are too fresh for prodding, so Dean backs off.
Against his very nature, he backs off.
“Fine. Vague is good too,” Dean holds his hands up, signaling his surrender. There is no sarcasm in his tone, for once, and he flashes Castiel a bright smile.
The angel looks wary, no doubt thrown by Dean’s sudden agreeability, and Dean feels mistrustful eyes boring into his back as he reaches into the back seat of the car, extracting two glass bottles full of warming beer. He holds one up to Castiel, a truce offering of sorts, but Castiel just looks more confused. He shakes his head once and Dean shrugs, replacing one bottle and opening the other, drinking deeply.
“Well, okay. But don’t claim I never offered.”
Resting his arms on the trunk, Dean reclines a little, drinking and watching the field once more. He feels Castiel’s eyes on him for a few more seconds before the angel moves to stand beside him, his hands holding the edge of the trunk as he leans against it.
Silence settles over them, but it’s not uncomfortable. In fact, Dean feels more relaxed than he has in ages. Certainly more relaxed than he’s felt since Lucifer was released (not that that says much).
It almost feels normal-as normal as hanging around drinking with an angel can feel.
“Crazy weather, huh? It’s been a real bitch since we got here.”
“It’s been that way everywhere, Dean, and it will continue to be.”
Dean takes a swig from his bottle, then turns to look at Castiel.
“Whaddya mean?”
Castiel looks back at him now. When their eyes meet, Dean wishes he hadn’t asked.
“That’s them. It’s Heaven and Hell, and they’re becoming anxious. They are, in a sense, preparing the troops… Now they’re just waiting for the signal.”
“What signal?”
Castiel looks at the ground between them fleetingly. Dean wonders if maybe he’s spent too much time with this angel, spent too much time analyzing his facial expressions and the meanings imparted by his silence. This silence, this expression, neither is foreign to Dean anymore. He knows what they mean.
He knows what Castiel is thinking before he says it.
“What you do next-how you choose to handle this-will determine their next steps.”
“Great,” Dean groans, turning around to lean his torso over the back of the car and lowering his head as exhaustion suddenly begins to weigh over him, heavier than ever. “No pressure there.”
He feels a warm hand on his shoulder and looks up to find Castiel, a sympathetic half-smile on his face.
It helps, but it is hardly enough to quell the clenching of Dean’s lungs.
“Is it too much to hope you know what it is I’m supposed to do? I’m guessing bolting in the night is out of the question…”
Laughing softly, appreciatively, Castiel mimics Dean’s position on the car. He’s standing close enough that their arms are touching.
Dean does his best not to notice.
“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for you. I wish I did.”
“Yeah, well… thanks anyway,” Dean chugs from his bottle once more, but it’s lost all its flavor. It has started to warm from the heat of his hands, and he isn’t even sure it’s fulfilling its sole purpose of making him drunk enough to forget just how royally fucked he is.
Next time, he decides, he’s springing for the good stuff.
“So what about you?” he turns to Castiel who looks down at his vessel’s hands, “what happens to you if I choose wrong?”
Castiel folds his hands, squinting against the cold wind.
“They’ve already let me go; they have more important things to deal with than me.”
“You sure about that?”
“No,” Castiel pauses, frowning slightly, only for a moment, before looking back at Dean and raising a brow, “but when are we ever sure of anything?”
Dean feels his insides warm, and his head feels like it’s been pumped full of air. He is almost completely certain that it has nothing to do with the beer.
“I guess you’re right.”
It isn’t exactly enough, assuming that Castiel might be okay in the end. And it is, after all, probably more than partially Dean’s fault that the angel is now in trouble with the higher-ups: Dean had asked him, begged him, for help, and, he’d come through.
Of course, it had meant sacrifice on Castiel’s part; sacrifice that Dean couldn’t fathom in his wildest dreams. Dean knows this.
They’d both been asked to risk everything. Dean had done so for Sammy. Castiel had done so for-
“Hey, Cas?”
“Hmm?”
Dean fiddles with the almost-empty bottle in his hands. He swears it feels heavier now than it did only moments before, and his palms are slippery with his anxious perspiration.
He was never good at the whole gratitude thing.
“Thanks… for what you did. I mean-I wasn’t exactly-Thanks.”
Castiel looks at him sideways and nods, brow raised once more. His eyes search Dean’s, and Dean feels so exposed and bared for Castiel to see that he looks away.
He immediately hates himself for it.
“How is Sam dealing with everything?” Castiel asks, and Dean exhales in relief.
Normally, Dean is one of the blessed few who can happily carry on a conversation whether or not anyone else actually takes part. Lately, however, he has found that the right words don’t seem to come as quickly as they used to. If Castiel hadn’t said anything, they would’ve been in for a good five minutes of awkward silence.
“Ah, you know Sammy: as long as he’s got a library and that stupid computer, he’s fine. My brother the geek.”
“Good. I was concerned that the demon blood may have been too much for him to handle. He has been through much, and the addiction is a powerful one... That he hasn’t succumbed to it again is admirable.”
For a moment, Dean just stares; mouth hanging open like a catfish.
The shock is fairly overwhelming, after all: he is sure he’s never heard anything even remotely resembling sympathy for Sam leave Castiel’s mouth, and he was sure he never would. Sam and Castiel had been on opposite sides from the start. A rock and a hard place, with Dean stuck somewhere between.
But, he’d said it. Even as robotic as it sounded, that Castiel would think to say it at all is more than appreciated.
A weight he hadn’t been aware he’d been carrying lifts from Dean’s shoulders and he smiles.
“Yeah, it’s been hard for him, for both of us. But we get by.”
The wind whips between them, angry and cold, and Castiel backs away from the car.
“I should be going. There are things I must attend to.”
Dean has a split second to make his decision, and he does.
He doesn’t even bother pretending to let Cas walk away; he decides they’re both already living on borrowed time anyway. Better to make the best of it while they can.
He reaches out for Castiel’s hand and uses it to pull the angel’s body to his. Then Dean presses his lips to Castiel’s so hard he worries for an instant that he might be hurting him. He feels Castiel’s hands grip his arms, tightly at first but after a moment, they relax a bit.
Running his hands up Castiel’s arms, he lets them rest on his neck, fingers brushing his throat.
Time stops around them, allowing them their moment. The angry howling of the wind is gone, replaced with the pulsating beat in Dean’s ears; his blood rushing through his system at a million miles a minute. The cold is chased away by the warmth from Castiel’s body, from the way his hands are holding Dean’s arms, so firm and reassuring.
Everything fades away, just for a moment, leaving only Dean and his angel.
And, he realizes incredulously, he’s happy. Somewhere Lucifer is walking around wearing some schmuck’s skin, somewhere a horde of Heaven’s angels are plotting the fall of Man; somewhere the End is just waiting for that last piece of the hideous puzzle called the Apocalypse to fall into place, bringing it all to a stop.
But not here.
Here there’s just Castiel’s hands, and his lips, and the way his hot breath is kissing Dean’s cheek, leaving it moist and warm to the touch.
“Goddamn,” Dean whispers into Castiel’s hair, content to just hold him like this a little longer, “goddamn.”
The abandoned beer bottle tumbles from the hood of the car where Dean had left it, crashing to the ground. It rolls away, cracked but not shattered.
*
Castiel sighs.
He knows he has to leave shortly, though it may be the last thing he wants to do. Things are different now, and he knows it.
He’d disobeyed. He’d disobeyed, and one of Heaven’s greatest weapons had descended upon him, beautiful and terrible, tearing him from Jimmy’s body in a burst of pure light.
The archangel had broken him completely, nearly to a point from which he could not return.
For two weeks, Castiel had been re-indoctrinated, his grace scrubbed and cleansed until it was raw, whittled down to its original, perfect purity.
It was excruciating.
This is becoming a habit with you, the archangel had once mused, and Castiel had imagined it was smiling. Of course it wasn’t; angels didn’t smile. That was the point.
Eventually, once the archangel decided Castiel was pure enough, it had agreed to allow his release. There had been only one condition: that he go immediately to Dean and insist that the hunter choose to side with the angels who had fooled him, had fooled his brother, into bringing about the Apocalypse. Castiel was, of course, the only angel Dean might listen to.
That had been on day three. Castiel, understanding what that would mean for Dean, refused.
The archangel continued with the cleansing.
The same offer was made and refused on day five.
And again on day nine.
And then on day twelve.
On day fourteen, Castiel agreed. He swore to the archangel that Dean would receive the message, that he would make the right choice.
Pleased with the answer, the archangel had allowed Castiel to leave.
Castiel had come to his decision on day thirteen, and was angry with himself for taking so long to do so. It seemed an obvious one.
He would agree, would tell the archangel what it wanted to hear, then he would go to Dean. He would make the hunter aware of the significance of his decision. Then he would step back and let Dean choose for himself what to do next.
The point, the only thing that matters, is making Dean see that he is important; that he is not alone. Had Castiel disappeared, refused for eternity to give in to Heaven’s demands, Dean would only have known he had been abandoned, yet again, by someone whom he trusted.
The angels will eventually realize what Castiel has done, of course, and he will be forced to live like a fugitive: constantly moving, not looking back; always waiting for the moment when his brothers will catch up with him.
Castiel is okay with that: he accepts his fate.
Dean is worth that.
Turning his face from Dean’s, Castiel speaks.
“I must go now.”
He feels Dean’s lips on his neck, in awe of the way his borrowed skin reacts to it. He’s never felt so vividly, it is as though every nerve ending is working at its maximum setting. He feels every slight touch of Dean’s fingers against his own, every fluttering eyelash as it brushes his face.
“Fine. But you better come back this time, got it?” Dean pulls back, narrowed green eyes finding Castiel’s, “If you get yourself killed, I will hunt your pathetic ass into the depths of Hell, I swear to God.”
Castiel nods and, as he leaves, planting a kiss on Dean’s forehead, he wonders if it’s true.
*
That night, Dean sleeps soundly. The wind keeps up, but he no longer hears it.
He falls asleep waiting for the sound of rushing wings.